Singapore jails migrant worker who bit off bystander’s fingertip in drunken brawl
- Indian national Thangarasu Rengasamy bit down so hard on the victim’s finger that it was partially amputated. The severed part was never found
- The victim, aged 50, had been trying to break up the fight when his finger ‘inadvertently entered Thangarasu’s mouth’, the court heard
Indian national Thangarasu Rengasamy, 40, was sentenced to 10 months’ jail on Friday after pleading guilty to voluntarily causing grievous hurt by biting the victim’s left index finger.
At the time of the incident, Thangarasu was an excavator operator living at a migrant worker dormitory in Kaki Bukit.
On April 22, he had been drinking alcohol with a friend near their dormitory at a popular spot for foreign workers to socialise.
During the nighttime drinking session, an intoxicated Thangarasu began shouting, prompting another man nearby – Arumugam Sankar, 42 – to voice his displeasure.
As the confrontation escalated, Arumugam approached Thangarasu and slapped him – at which point the victim, electrical engineering technician Nagooran Balasubramanian, 50, stepped in to try to separate the two men.
But Nagooran soon became caught in the struggle as well and his left index finger “inadvertently entered Thangarasu’s mouth”, according to court documents.
